The irony was not lost on me as I gingerly examined my jelly fish-stung right forearm, after emerging from the womb-warm South China Sea. Even though I’d spotted jelly fish as I entered the ocean I had nonetheless continued. I was craving to swim off this, an island just off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, after ten days of psychic healing work, and being sequestered in my room.
But most jelly fish – the nearest biological model for chakra cord structure – just don’t like it when you brush up against them in their natural environment. My arm now felt on fire, showing mottled red skin topped by a dangerous-looking welt. I momentarily considered returning to the mainland for treatment until a lifeguard ran over to help me, pulling an analgesic spray from his First Aid kit. He had watched many unlucky Westerners emerging from the ocean this week, grimacing. I did feel lucky that he had not offered me the local (and inexpensive) remedy for this kind of sting: fresh urine.
My body thankfully kicked into healing mode, responding to the pain with endorphins. But I also found myself dropping into an interesting state of consciousness around the injury. I wasn’t angry at the jelly fish (after all, I was the one invading his back yard, and not the other way around) and I was not in a life-threatening situation. But, it would have been human enough to blame the jelly fish for being bad, and to miss the obvious lesson: that life is a contact sport. We all play in the trenches of life, and we need to get our hands dirty. Being born human means learning to accept both pleasure and pain, comfort and discomfort, as two sides of the same coin. When we organize our lives around seeking pleasure while resisting pain it can result in all sorts of imbalances in modern day life: from consumerism to various forms of addictions. We overly consume, I suspect, to avoid feeling emotionally empty, and to fill the emptiness with momentary pleasure. We blame, and get angry at those things that bring us pain, rather than to embrace the life energy that many painful events awaken in us.
One of the tenets of modern Western energy healing work is that, by exploring the issues around emotional pain, an understanding will naturally arise, and thus heal the discomfort. Once cured, we imagine we can again return to our usual pleasure-seeking ways. At least, that is, until the next misfortune befalls us, or an addiction returns to capture our attention. Of course, the problem will always return if the solution is never embraced. My solution? Shift from victim to spiritual seeker. Pain is not just misfortune; it can be an opportunity for personal development.
Since the Nineteen Sixties psychotherapy has merged with various forms of energy healing to offer a solution that is helpful and yet not fully curative: that awareness can lead to new behavior, or permanent change. While earlier forms of energy healing channeled Divine intervention and grace, or transmitted life-enhancing prana from healer to client, psychotherapy dips into a grab bag of vitally-useful research on what has been found to help, or heal, the human psyche.
But the merging of psychotherapy with energy healing does not always lead to an enhanced form of energy healing. The very act of closely dissecting or expressing any emotional issue usually results in energizing that issue within the client. Don’t get me wrong: I am not recommending denial here; I’m suggesting an adjustment in the application of psychotherapeutic methods when it is deliberately blended with the energy healing process. My point is to only use insight methods as but one avenue to gain access to the blockage or poorly-developed inner resource held within the client’s energy field. Then, quickly more towards energizing the solution, rather than obsessing about the problem itself. I suggest that we build more bridges and roads, rather than to excavate mostly for hidden ruins, many of which are lost from everyday consciousness.
I’m a big fan of psychotherapy, but its goals are not the driving force of my healing practice with my clients. I want to swim, not dig. I want my clients to evolve, not simply return to the status quo. The initial dialog with my client, prior to each distance healing session, is only for us to locate a relevant entry point into their issue … one that will build energy towards the solution, and not feed the “problem”. Since the problem is often a symptom of the mind’s preference for pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance, charging any issue with attention over time makes things worse, not better.
Now, placing my hand over my painful welt, I felt nothing but affection for my jelly fish mentor. I held my forearm carefully, in a place of acceptance for the sensitivity of my skin, as well as the reflexive defense of my tendrilled friend. He and I were in it together. The pain would soon subside, and both human and jelly fish would continue to go about their day, seeking nourishment from the ocean. I now need not avoid the ocean, so as to not experience this pain again. In sharing the world with other life forms in the universe there has to be a certain give-and-take… as well as making the choice to walk forward, on the road of life . If we only excavate the past, we will stay rooted in the past, and dominated by it. Let’s move forward, now, and towards freedom.
I loved reading this post.. Thanks Dean!